Chris Cooper's Blog, page 66

The Low-Stress, High-Speed Path to Earning $100,000 From Your Gym

I’ll be honest: The idea of finding 300 clients for a coaching gym rattles me—even after running a fitness business since 2009.

To acquire 300 people, you need a hot marketing machine and salespeople. And to serve these clients, you need lots of classes, an army of staff people, a bunch of equipment, a decent amount of space, airtight systems and a ton of toilet paper.

And despite your best efforts, some will leave for any number of reasons no matter what you do. Even if you only lose 3 percent of your 300 members each month, you’ll have to add in nine new people just to hold steady at 300. To actually grow, you’ll have to add one new person every two or three days.

That’s not to say you can’t run a 300-plus-member gym: Lots of profitable, stable Two-Brain gyms have 300 or more clients, and a mentor can tell you exactly how to serve a big crowd.

But all those people make me nervous personally—which is why I’m thrilled to know a gym owner can make $100,000 a year with only 150 clients.

The 150 Model isn’t the only way to find success as a microgym owner, but it might be the simplest, fastest, least-stressful route to a great income.

I can hear the main criticism already because it pops up on social media every time Two-Brain posts about the 150 Model: “You just can’t make $100,000 with 150 clients if they’re all paying $50 a month.”

That is correct.

If your rates are very low and you run an access-only facility, you will need more than 150 members.

But remember that we’re talking about coaching gyms—and in these facilities it isn’t that hard to create service packages worth an average of $162 to $205 a month.

If you do that, you can make $100,000 per year. This isn’t hyperbole. We have spreadsheets that show you the exact breakdown. Here’s a chunk of one spreadsheet:

In this simple scenario, with recurring expenses and staff pay set to appropriate levels, the owner of this gym will earn $90,700 plus $11,500 in net profit.

I won’t get into all the math here. I just want to let you know it is possible to make $100,000 as a gym owner with 150 clients.

If you want to dig in further and crunch the numbers, we have a free 23-page guide that will lay everything out. You’ll get:

3 spreadsheet-backed plans to earn $100,000 from a gym.The six reasons you aren’t making $100,000 right now.A diagnostic tool to help you find the weakest parts of your business.A list of ways to solve the most common problems that stand between you and six-figure earning.

The guide is called “How to Make $100,000 a Year With 150 Clients,” and it’s available in our Gym Owners United group. You just have to click here and leave a comment on the post.

(If you aren’t in the group yet, join by clicking here, then comment on the post.)

If you get the guide—which comes with no strings attached—you’ll have the nitty-gritty numbers that support the model and everything you need to start improving your gym. Use the info to create the life you want.

But if you’d like some guidance and support when implementing Two-Brain’s proven model for gyms, that’s available, too. Click here to talk to us about how we can help you earn $100,000 a year with just 150 clients.

The post The Low-Stress, High-Speed Path to Earning $100,000 From Your Gym appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Buy Vs. Build: Two Ways to Expand Your Gym Empire

Chris Cooper (00:00):
Gym ownership generally happens in four phases. First, you systemize everything to turn your coaching passion into a real business. Then you optimize things to figure out what’s working best for you, and you go all in on those. Then you grow: You add staff and systems and marketing to increase your headcount, your ARM and your profitability. And for some gym owners, the fourth step is scale. That is to expand your empire by adding more locations or just doubling the size of your current location. Today we’re talking with three gym owners who have chosen to go the route of expanding their empire by adding more locations to their gym. They’ve done it different ways. Karl and Oskar worked together to build new locations from scratch, and, as you’ll hear, they follow the 150 Model over and over and over again. Per Mattsson, on the other hand, who’s also in a similar market in Sweden, he grows by acquiring gyms in his neighborhood or partnering with them to help them grow. You’re gonna hear from both today, but the big questions for you are: Are you ready to do this? Can your gym run itself? Can it scale based on systems? Can it run without you? If it can, then it might be time to start thinking about other locations, but if it can’t, it might be time to just focus on your first single location, build your income and build your systems to the point where it’s self-sustaining, and then think about the next steps from there. Karl, OsKar and Perr, welcome back to “Run a Profitable Gym.”

Karl Solberg (01:28):
Thank you very much.

Chris Cooper (01:30):
So thrilled to have you all as beloved teammates on the mentor team at Two-Brain. You’re also successful multiple gym owners. So why don’t we just do a quick round of intros here. Karl, would you go first, please?

Karl Solberg (01:43):
Sure. So Karl Solberg, born and raised in Stockholm, opened up CrossFit Medis with Oskar in 2014. And we opened up our second location, CrossFit Sickla in 2020—February 2020.

Chris Cooper (02:01):
Thanks. Oskar?

Oskar Johed (02:03):
Everything that Karl said, it’s me. Two years younger than Karl. Slightly shorter, slightly less handsome, but I think we form a pretty good pair in terms of running a gym that we can hopefully dive into later on.

Chris Cooper (02:18):

Wonderful. Per?

Per Mattsson (02:20):
I’m Per. I live like an hour’s drive north of these guys, so north of Stockholm. I started my first gym here in 2009, and then started my second gym with some partners 2016. Last year we bought into two other gyms in Sweden. So I’m currently co-owner of four different gyms. And yeah, I think that’s my gym-owner story. Part of the mentor team, of course.

Chris Cooper (02:50):
Of course. Yeah. So Karl and Oskar, I’ll turn to you. A few weeks ago when I was visiting Per’s event Coaches Congress in Sweden, I got to drive around with you guys and see the original gym, and then go see the new one and talk about your model. So maybe the two of you guys can just describe your model for opening gyms from scratch.

Karl Solberg (03:14):
Well, I mean, it took us a while to figure it all out. Like many of our gyms in Two-Brain, we were also like trying to figure this out on our own first. So we were not very successful from the get go in 2014. We did a bunch of mistakes, and it was not until after a few years after having joined Two-Brain Business that we really started to get momentum. And I think ever since, and Oskar, you can jump in at any time, like ever since we have focused on just doing the, the basic stuff over and over again and perfecting the models over and over again. So by the time we opened our second location, our first location was already running without us. So we had good systems in place before we opened up our second location. And good system means the very basic stuff of what we have in Two-Brain Business, what we teach in our curriculum of the Prescriptive Model of doing No Sweat Intros, of having an on-ramp program, of doing goal reviews on a regular basis, making sure that we check in with clients as often as needed in order to keep them around. And you can take over Oskar. When we opened up in 2020, it was, of course, a very special time in the world.

Oskar Johed (04:56):
Yeah. But I think at the same time, you know, we’ve only been gym owners for nine years. The first gym ran for about five years before we opened up our second location. And as Karl said, it took us about five years to become not necessarily dependent in the business anymore. So the second location took us about two-and-a-half years. And I think it takes time to get good at something. We’ve only been entrepreneurs for nine years. I intend to be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life, and so does Karl and hopefully the staff that we develop as well. So I think we’re relatively patient. We are very humble in the fact that it’s gonna take time to be good, and what we just have to be is we have to be slightly better every day for a very long time. And we just have to be slightly better than the average, unfortunately. And then we’re gonna be very successful. So I think that’s what we try to do. We stick to the stuff that works. We do test the curriculum quite hard. We are not afraid to try the whole “bullets before cannonballs,”’ but at the same time, we come back to the stuff that keeps working, and we keep doing it. And just as an example, like three weeks ago, we just modified our goal-review model. And from what it looks right now, we have about 40 percent higher upsell from the process we’ve done. So we’ve made tweaks to the model and how we do it, but it’s still doing goal reviews. So we just do what works until it works. And then when it’s working well enough, we then try to make it better. If it doesn’t, we go back to the things that we know works.

Chris Cooper (06:31):
So what you just described there is really virtuosity, I think, and what really struck me when I visited your gyms was that you’re sticking to the basics and working hard on getting better and better at the basics. How do you avoid the distractions. If you walked into Catalyst today, and you guys are better at scaling than I am, if you walked into Catalyst, my gym, you’d see here’s the heart-rate monitor, here’s the Level Method map, here’s the supplements and retail. You know, it’s my sandbox, and I just try and do everything. Where you guys, it’s very clear. Your marketing, it’s very clear. Your sales, the NSI is clear. The goal review is clear. You know, how do you stick to the core without being distracted by all these other options?

Oskar Johed (07:16):
I think one thing is from the start we had an idea who we were to serve. Obviously, we’re way better today at serving them. When we applied to become a CrossFit gym, we wrote something like “we just wanna serve normal, extraordinary human beings three to four times a week, mom and pop people, 40-plus-type individuals.” And these are the same clients we serve today. We always have the same focus. And do we use the Level Method? Yes, but that’s only because it serves our client. And I think something else that we do quite well is we rarely make stupid mistakes. We have Per for that—ha, I gave a little push there. But he also has some greater successes. But I think you don’t become successful by chasing mediocre returns. Like if we know that we have data to support what we do in in Two-Brain. We know that NSIs work. We just have to do that. And then we try to, you know, iterate to make it better. Same thing with goal reviews or whatever it might be. We stick to the stuff that works and just try to make it better. ‘Cause we have a data sample of 900 gyms or so, probably of 2,000 over the long run that’s been doing this. And that’s also why we stick with multiplying our model by opening up new gyms: so we can iterate even faster. The first gym took like five years, and the second gym took three years to be independent. The goal is to open up a new gym and to not even be there from the start. We can iterate way faster. And that’s something I think serves at least us quite well.

Chris Cooper (08:47):
Karl, maybe you can go a little bit more on that for listeners. So one thing that you said to me as we were driving down around is “every gym is not a brand new gym starting from scratch. Every new gym is like the 150 Model over and over and over and over again.” What did you mean by that?

Karl Solberg (09:04):
I just want to mention one thing first about the vision because I do think that that clarity is also something that helps—like from the other question that you asked, what makes us stick to what we do and not go chasing after other things? And I think our vision has always helped us. Even though we didn’t write it down from the very start, it was pretty clear to us what we wanted to do. And the best way to deliver on that vision is through the 150 membership or members model. The Two-Brain business model, doing that really well has allowed us to step out and look at scaling options. So the way I see it is that if we can be really successful at implementing that model, those systems, and giving our clients the success that we want for them, given the vision we have then—and this is a question; I think the first time we asked ourselves this question was probably like six, seven years ago—it’s like “why can’t we do this multiple times? Why can’t we just build new gyms?” So we’ve had the idea for a long time, but not until we opened up our second location. It was clear that we could actually do it. And then, of course, opening up a second location came with a bunch of new problems. So we needed to retest all of our models again. But then again, I think it became easier because we were doing the basic stuff and we were focusing on that. So taking the 150 Model and copying it just seems like the natural way to go.

Chris Cooper (11:06):
So each location has its new challenges, and I think Per will probably dive into this a little bit more, but if the foundational models are the same, you can scale more quickly. Where are you finding economies of scale? So, for example, just for the listeners’ sake, are you finding that you can have one general manager managing one or two or three gyms or are you finding that you only need one salesperson running two gyms? Or you can swap coaches? Are there any economies of scale that you’re gaining by opening multiple locations?

Karl Solberg (11:43):
We think so. We are not there yet, but our ambition is to first of all open up 10 locations. And I’m not sure where the point is where we need, for instance, multiple general managers. But so far when we look at the 150 Model, and we look at the most important things to do locally that is like within one gym in one location, the way we see it today is that the staff working at that location has to be able to and empowered to work with the client experience as unhindered and as freely as possible. So retention becomes like the Number 1 function locally. The beauty of this, though, is that if we have a central location or a central function, we can take care of a lot of the stuff that will stress the local organization. And I think that’s where you find the economy of scale. Does that make sense?

Chris Cooper (13:07):
Yeah. What’s an example of a centralized function?

Karl Solberg (13:11):
So a centralized function could, for instance, be R&D. And it could also be marketing. And I think those are the pretty obvious ones. I think finance is also typically a central function. There will be some accountability and tracking data that you need to delegate to the local organization. They need to answer to specific metrics. But if you can free them of as much of those things as possible, like the way we see it today is that then they can really go in and focus on the clients. So what we we’re trying to do is to delegate as little as possible of those central functions that I mentioned—like R&D; that shouldn’t be local. We think marketing shouldn’t be local, we think, if it’s not Affinity Marketing. That will be a part of the local organization. And also like finances. If it’s not just reporting numbers, then it doesn’t belong in the local organization.

Chris Cooper (14:27):
Beautiful. OK. So one more kind of encompassing question before I turn it over to Per, who’s doing things differently. Oskar, Karl, you find a new location, you’re in there, you’re gonna open today, and you’ve got a blank canvas. What are the systems that you use right from the start?

Oskar Johed (14:45):
Well, first our goal is to be cash-flow positive from Day 1. So we need the marketing engine to run. And what works really well for us is Facebook advertising. It works really well. So that’s something we would rely on. Then we also like to open our locations relatively close to where we currently are. So we get a cell splitting in a sense. We divide, so some of the members from our current location might go to the new one to bring our culture with them. So that frees up new space at the current space we can fill up there. We also got a running start with core people that understand what we do at a new location. That’s what we did here, and that’s something we could do. But then quickly, you know, goal reviews. We have 400 members, but we still do about 40 to 50 goal reviews a week. So we do believe that that’s the key reason why our retention is relatively good. We have over 200 members per location, but we still do it on a 150 Model ‘cause we’ve been successful enough to scale up. We have the resources to do it because our retention is good. So we still believe that goal reviews—our clients can do goal reviews as often as they want. So that’s something we still think is very important for the clients that we seek. So that would still be like an NSI because we do think that we want to make sure we protect the current clients we have. Yes, we want the same type of avatars within the gyms. That makes our lives way easier. We’re gonna reduce complexity. And then the systems. In our case we have standards even as we are running fast. We always start on time and finish on time because we focus on 40-plus-year-old professionals that need to pick up their kids from school or whatever. So that’s the key thing. But then we also do goal reviews. As Karl said, we need to make sure we pay taxes and, you know, we pay the bills and all this stuff. But that’s been delegated up so we can put our very empathetic, caring people that coach in place spending as much time as possible to enrich the lives of the members that we have. So it’s like we don’t need to add more stuff to it. We don’t sell supplements, we don’t sell shirts, and there’s a lot of things we don’t do because we still think we can get better at this stuff. We are doing relatively well. And I’d like to emphasize that again we’re still only nine years into being entrepreneurs, and we haven’t been doing this for that long. So we still have things to do better in terms of just NSIs and the goal reviews and all this stuff. And then we can do that in multiple locations before we start adding other stuff. ‘Cause once again, we’ve come relatively far. We have a 20-plus percent net profit margin, two gyms, and 400-plus members. But we still have things to do where we stand. We’ve gotta dig where we stand. So that means the Prescriptive Model. We still keep the goal reviews. That’s central. And then anything else? I can’t really think of anything else. Karl, do you think of anything else that we do from Day 1?

Karl Solberg (17:50):
It’s the sales piece and the retention piece and all of the systems that’s included. So you mentioned already like some sort of a pre-sale, a founders club or something, in order to get net positive from Day 1. But apart from that, it is the very basic systems of selling, prescribing the right program and then making sure the client journey is just as flawless as possible.

Oskar Johed (18:18):
Yeah. One thing I like, running a gym isn’t particularly complicated. Like, people make it both complicated and complex. It’s about serving the clients that you’re fit to serve—and just keep doing that over and over and over again. And I think that’s one of the strengths that we still have. We are pretty good at keeping ourselves accountable to not try things that we haven’t tested yet. ‘Cause we wanna limit downside risk. We know what we can maybe gain, but if we screw up we might destroy the relationship we built for our clients. And it’s taken us nine years to get this far, but it can be wiped out quickly if you do something that’s, not malicious, but that turns out to be wrong. So we just wanna keep doing this stuff well, and we stand to do it for probably 30, 40 more years to be even better.

Chris Cooper (19:09):
All right. I think another great model that you two have is staff development and training, but I think we’ll come back to that. What I’d like to do is turn to Per. Per. Can you describe your model for adding more gyms to your empire?

Per Mattsson (19:24):
Yeah, I could try at least—‘cause I don’t know if it’s a model yet. But yeah, we’re trying. So I think the background story also is that I have my first gym with one partner, and he’s not part of this new venture, this new empire. So that’s another gym. That’s my first gym. I have that with one partner. Then we opened CrossFit 162 West in 2017, and with that gym we went sort of straight into Two-Brain Business and followed all the tactics and strategies because that was one of our goals. We’re gonna do things by the book now because I was one of the first gyms in Sweden doing CrossFit and did all the mistakes. So that gym was really successful. Like in the first three years I think before the pandemic we were on our way to be becoming a million-dollar gym and had a kids program of 200 kids doing sports-specific training, 250 members with an ARM of $205, something like that. So, you know, we were just crushing it. I think we had a great team. So we are a team of co-owners in that gym. Three of us are still sort of active. It’s me, Christopher and Stefan. And me and Christopher, we are almost not needed in that gym anymore ‘cause Stefan is a very good operative manager. He’s leading most of the processes, like sales, and he’s the head coach. He’s you know, really good at delivering excellent service. And we have a couple of really good coaches who are very entrepreneurial. So they are part of the sales team and the marketing team and the client success team, et cetera. So we felt one and a half, two years ago, that we were ready to try something new. We have always also had the ambition of running more gyms. But I think if I was to compare myself to Oskar and Karl, I think I’m a bit lazier, to be honest. What I do admire with these guys is that they can go all in on something and they just stay consistent. And we don’t want to run the risk of having to solve problems in other gyms as well. So our model was more like, “OK, we know that there are gyms out there where gym owners either want to sell or they need help. Some of them come to Two-Brain Business. Some of them email me or call me and ask me questions.” So we just knew that there are opportunities out there, especially after the pandemic. So we actually posted like an ad on Facebook and told people that we are looking for gyms to buy into where you as an owner want to stay on as an active partner. So our model is to buy into other gyms where the owner still wants to work in the gym and create a career. So that’s what we do. We buy 50 percent and they keep 50 percent. So we want them to have a strong incentive of staying in the business. ‘Cause like one of the gyms we bought into is way up north, and the other gym we bought into last year is way down south. So there’s absolutely no way we could go there and solve problems or deal with stuff. We don’t want to end up in that situation, either. So I think also it’s based on our strengths. I think I am very good at helping other owners gain confidence and learn how to be leaders. And Christopher, my partner, is good at the financial side, so he’s a bit more systematic guy than I am. So as a team, I think we work really well when we sort of step in to help other gyms. And of course one of the conditions also is that that gym signs up for Two-Brain Business. So they have another mentor as well. So we wouldn’t wanna work with a gym owner who isn’t interested in joining Two-Brain Business because we actually think that’s one of the major keys to success.

Chris Cooper (23:25):
That, that’s awesome. What are some of the challenges when you’re taking over a gym that’s different from the other gyms? How do you bring that gym on board so that it’s running as well as the others?

Per Mattsson (23:39):
Yeah, I would say there are a lot of challenges because you actually don’t know anything you think you know. You can have meetings with people, you can look into their financial statements and everything, and then there are still things hidden underneath the surface or something, right? So there’s a risk that you take, but I would say that that risk is quite low because it’s not very expensive to buy into small microgyms. So for us, we were willing to take that risk. We were also a bit naive in terms of what the risks could be. So I think for us it’s a learning process Right now we are in the process of opening up another gym, and that process has been a bit different with those local partners. But yeah, you know, you really don’t know if that local partner is a good leader or not. You really don’t know if they have a good team or not. You have no idea how their members are going to react when you start implementing new tactics and strategies, for instance, rate increases. So it’s based on qualified guesses, I would say. But so far I definitely think that the pros are stronger than the cons. It’s been a lot. It’s been a fun process. I see it as like “mentorship on steroids” ‘cause we speed up their process. They have a mentor, they do RampUp, but then, you know, we can supply them with playbooks, processes, experiences. We can connect their nutrition coach to our nutrition coach. So I think there are a lot of different things that we do that really speeds up the process.

Chris Cooper (25:21):
When you acquire a gym, Per, say you bought one today and you had to step in right away to fix something. Like what are the very first processes or models that you put in place in that gym?

Per Mattsson (25:33):
I would say an on-ramp process with personal training in it. ‘Cause what I want to do is I want to help the owner gain confidence to charge more. And I think an individualized on-ramp is one of the best ways of doing that. ‘Cause sometimes it’s a bit scary to just increase your rates or whatever. But implementing a new strategy for onboarding members, you can see that there are a lot of people even in my small town that are willing to pay more. That’s gonna give the owner more confidence, and it’s gonna show the coaches that “Oh, right, these guys, they actually know what they’re talking about.” So that, I think that’s a good first like stepping stone.

Chris Cooper (26:12):
Yeah. And where do you foresee economies of scale? You know, like Karl mentioned he could centralize finance and marketing potentially. Are there any opportunities for you to do that as you’re acquiring these other gyms?

Per Mattsson (26:26):
Absolutely. I would say, I mean, when they mentioned all those things, you could see me sitting and nodding. It’s exactly the same things. Finances, definitely. We are going to probably hire someone in August to take care of all the gyms for us. So we have a very talented person that we are going to hire, and I think that’s really gonna help all the gyms. Marketing, definitely. So also, you know, it’s also a learning process even with the different individual gyms because I spent one day at the summit with other owners, Karl and Oskar for instance, and a couple of other multiple-location owners, and I got really good input from that day. So we are changing the way we are going to market. We are changing the way we are going to define roles and tasks. So I can see a lot of different scaling options, you know where, where we can really draw from this. So marketing, continuing education, definitely. And finances.

Chris Cooper (27:32):
All right. So I, I really wanted to get into that coach-education piece, and Oskar and Karl, you proudly share that you have more Level 3 coaches—sorry, CrossFit Level 3 coaches—than anywhere else, maybe in Europe, in your organization. How do you handle staff training to create this excellent service across multiple locations?

Karl Solberg (27:57):
I don’t know where to start there. But I think one of the things that we did was to just tell everybody on the team what we expect from them and when in terms of the education milestones. So this was just a small section, and it’s very simple in our playbook. But it says like, “When you start working here, we expect you to have this level of external credentials. And then we also have a list of internal credentials, which are essentially just milestones, education milestones.” And then it is of course like, “Well, what’s the next external step?” “Well, it’s this, and then the next external step is this.” So it’s very clear what we expect from our staff and by when we expect it. And then maybe, Oskar, you can say something about how we actually put that into practice.

Oskar Johed (29:02):
Yeah, I think it really started to take off when we decided to start every single meeting we have with the vision. We wanna fundamentally improve the health and quality of our members and their families. Like that is not surface-level stuff. We can point to numerous examples. We’ve had people, you know, come off medications or leave abusive relationships or whatever. So we keep pointing to that all the time: that the training we do here is to make it better for these people. And the next cohort of 10 gyms that we’re gonna open up is genuinely—I’m trying to not cuss on this show here—but we would wanna make it very, very important—that this is front and center. You know, everybody knows that you don’t necessarily become a better trainer just because you get credentials, but we have a very empathetic, caring crew. If we can overlay that and combine that with higher credentials, they are gonna be able to scale. The confidence comes with that. So they can say to someone, “You need nutrition guidance or you need to do more personal training or you should do X, Y and Z instead.” So that’s where we started. And then we, as Karl said, we keep pointing people: “We still like you if you don’t want to seek higher credentials. That’s perfectly fine, but you will not be able to be part of our organization going forward. We have made this promise externally to these people that we will be here for them forever, and our members get better. So we have to get better as well.” And I think our staff has risen to the challenge. We have at least two currently part-time trainers that are CrossFit Level 3 trainers. They coach twice, once a week or so. So they have other jobs, but they just want it to be better. And now they’re looking to get to Level 4. So it just comes to be a strong belief in what we do. And then it becomes obvious for everyone to be better. So we can eventually look down specifics of how we do it, but we are genuinely committed to improving the health and quality of life of the members. So it just becomes a natural extension. Like, “This is how we behave today and tomorrow.”

Chris Cooper (31:12):
How do you address trainer education, quality and excellence across multiple locations in different places?

Per Mattsson (31:21):
Yeah, that remains to be seen, I think. ‘Cause I would think it’s even hard to answer that just looking at one of my gyms, because I think also what we choose to focus on as owners is also a reflection of what we are interested in. Like if you look at Karl and Oskar, for instance, Oskar, he wanted to become a Seminar Staff member. So that’s what he did, right? So he’s really into it. He’s great at coaching, and he’s great at everything around that. I focus more in my team at CrossFit 162 West on the entrepreneurial side. I wanted them to become good at creating content. I wanted them to become good at selling, you know, establishing networks, blah, blah, blah. So that is what we focused on. I am not sure if that was the best possible strategy or if that is the best possible strategy going forward, but it worked really well for us for a couple of years. I also saw that Karl and Oskar, a couple of years ago, they really struggled with their coaches and were a bit frustrated, but they just stayed consistent. And now I think like the next two, three years, they are going to explode their organization. That’s what I think. I definitely, so sort of, borrow things from them. So I can see us, we have already become a bit more focused on, you know, the coaching side. We want to improve that side of the business as well, perhaps narrowing down our roles with our team members. So we don’t want ’em to do like 5, 6, 7 different things because they sort of lose focus. So as you can see, I don’t really know yet, but I think it’s gonna be more towards what Karl and Oskar are doing and less towards that entrepreneurial side.

Chris Cooper (33:05):
Thanks, guys. One thing I love about all three of you and the team at Two-Brain is that if you don’t know the answer, you’ll say that. Or if you don’t have experience, you’ll say that. I think it’s all too rare among business coaches right now—people who just pretend that they know everything. So thank you for being that way. Let’s just talk about pros and cons, Karl and Oskar. Why do you choose to open new gyms starting from scratch each time instead of acquiring other gyms?

Karl Solberg (33:35):
A question we’ve been asking ourselves many years. And I think when we look at the gyms that we could possibly acquire and we make our list of pros and cons, so far we have ended up with a longer list of cons than pros when it comes to acquiring another gym. When we look at how simple it is, in fact, to open up a gym—and I wanna remember some stuff from “Two-Brain Business,” the first book. Like you’re mentioning how easy it is in that book to open up a gym, to open up a CrossFit gym. It’s like the easiest thing that you can do. You find a location, you fill it with some equipment, and then boom, you’re done. You can basically open up. And I think we still feel that it is actually easy to open up a gym. We have found out, too, that finding a location isn’t always that easy. We’re in Stockholm, in the capital of Sweden. It’s a fairly big city. It’s fairly expensive to rent here. It’s fairly expensive to rent a facility. It’s almost impossible to buy because the price of the land is just too high. So there are challenges there. So it might not be super easy in terms of just finding a location, but there are locations. And the second big obstacle, or the second big problem, is, of course, to find enough staff, to have enough staff to put in there to serve your clients. And I think that’s the obstacle that we’re still wrestling a lot with, and we’re doing it together with Per as well. We’re trying to figure out “well, what do we need to do in order to staff 10 locations?” And of course we don’t have that answer yet because we only have two, but already it’s hard to find staff.

Oskar Johed (36:03):
I also think that if I just compare ourselves to Per—I can speak for myself a hundred percent, but I can probably speak for Karl as well—I believe that Per is a better leader than we are. So I think that his patience in leading people—he’s better at seeing the time it takes to change an organization that I don’t have. If I was forced to do it, I probably would do a decent job, but that’s not one of my strengths. Patience is not something I have a lot of. So the tiny amount of patience I have, I try to have that and work hard so we can stay together and do what we do well instead. But I think both and Karl are, just to compare it to Per, we’re not as good of leaders as he is in terms of like managing change. So for us, it’s more obvious to start something from scratch. We don’t have to change; we just have to replicate rather than trying to see that mentoring of staff. Karl and I are more like, “Hey, keep running in one direction.” We’re really good at that. But when we start changing direction, it’s not where our strengths are. I would say maybe Karl is gonna fire me after this call, but I think that’s something we don’t have.

Karl Solberg (37:23):
I agree. I agree. Yes, I think so, too. Like for us, it becomes more natural and easy to open up a new business than to acquire one and drive change the way that Per is very, very talented in doing.

Chris Cooper (37:40):
If Karl fired you for saying that, Oskar, it would just be more evidence that what you said is true. So yes, perfect. OK. And I 100 percent agree. I ask Per’s advice on leadership questions all the time. Per, why do you choose the acquisition model over the duplication model?

Per Mattsson (37:58):
It seemed both fun and interesting, but also we don’t have to find the location. We don’t have to find a team of staff members. So, you know, all of that is already in place. We know that we don’t have to go there, solve any issues. I can be a good co-owner or partner through Zoom or phone calls. So it’s fun, but it’s also sort of easier to start because all of the issues that they mentioned about finding a place, finding a location. We have tried that. We have also tried in the Stockholm area to open up more gyms, negotiate contracts, and it’s really, really hard. But I can definitely see ourselves opening up a gym also if that opportunity arises. I don’t know. But it, you know, the biggest obstacle I would say is finding a location or recruiting coaches. So for us, this suits us. I am really interested in helping gym owners, so I can spend time on Zoom or phone calls. I can visit the team and inspire them. Christopher is really good at digging into the numbers and helping out on that side. So I think it suits us. He’s right now on a sailboat, but he was coaching one of the other owners today on Zoom. So, you know, I don’t think we are going to make as much money as Karl and Oskar. I don’t think so because the gyms that we are going to run are probably going to be a bit smaller in terms of revenue and profit, but I don’t know. So it’s just, you know, if we can prove that this works with a couple of gym owners, we are going to have a strong negotiation point with new gyms that want to open up with us. So I don’t think we are going to pay next time we buy into a gym. It’s going to be sweat equity and experience. So it’s a fairly easy way of doing it. I think the risk is fairly low. If it doesn’t work, we can just sell our shares again. And that would be a learning experience. So, you know, we have me, Karl, Oskar, we have always said that, you know, we really want to change and help CrossFit gyms in Sweden. Owning more locations is one of the ways of doing it, and other way is mentoring them through Two-Brain Business. So if you would ask why, I would say because it’s fun, because I think it’s doable.

Chris Cooper (40:37):
Such a great answer, Per. So my last question for both of you, for all three of you, is what would make you adopt the other person’s model? So Oskar, Karl, what would make you buy another gym? And does it include a sailboat?

Oskar Johed (40:54):
Yes. I think we—well, I speak myself. I could not be the one driving the change in the organization ‘cause I’m not good at that. I’m pretty good at getting people to run even faster and in the right direction. But I am not patient enough to see change through, so if I had someone—we might have to acquire Per. Or if when we start growing now we might get people on top so I can be outside of the day-to-day business, but we have someone that can drive that change. So I have nothing against the model. I just know that I would not be effective in that model, nor would I be efficient. So if we got someone that could drive change, I would be more than willing to, cause I agree with Per. It’s like if we can get more gym owners to stay open through co-ownership, where you own them for a while then sell them back, that would honestly be my favorite thing. I don’t want people to go out of business. Now I know myself well enough that I could not drive the change that would be needed to make this model successful. Karl might have a different opinion.

Karl Solberg (41:57):
Well, if I would go into a joint venture, if I would buy into another gym, we would have to have a very strong shared opinion about where this business is going. And I think like on the vision level of what we want to do … . I also think I need to be approached. I wouldn’t do it if I needed to approach the other gym, but if I would’ve had somebody come to us asking for our help under these sort of terms and conditions, then I would consider it. Yes. And also, like looking into the future, you were talking about that Oskar, like the way we’re building our centralized organization today, we do want to replace ourselves in our current seats. And I think also that, like, as an owner, I might be interested if my team was strong enough, if I had people on my team that had the skills, like Per’s leadership skills, for instance. If I had that team, then yes, I would like to look at those options. But currently it’s me and Oskar, and we have also our general manager, Emma. We don’t have those skills yet. So today, thank you, but no thank you. Tomorrow? Yes, hopefully.

Chris Cooper (43:47):
Such a great answer. Per same question, reversed: What would make you want to open another gym from scratch?

Per Mattsson (43:54):
I think I would only do it with like Karl and  Oskar—people like that because, you know, they have to know a lot about how we think about things in Two-Brain. They have to have a very strong work ethic. They need to be very good at coaching and recruiting and training. So honestly, I think that’s my answer–people like that.

Chris Cooper (44:20):
Thank you so much to the three of you. I think this is gonna help a lot of people decide on what’s really important when it is time to scale, when they go from one location to multiple or even decide to exceed the 150 Model and add more people. Tremendously helpful. You’re very wise and humble. Thank you all. Thank you. Those are three of my favorite mentors and gym owners in the world. And what you’ll hear from them is that they have simple systems that create models that they can duplicate over and over and over again. Karl and Oskar are really good at inserting those models and building on them from a blank canvas. Per is really great at teaching and mentoring those models to people who already own existing gyms. And there are pros and cons to each. What’s most important though, is that simplicity scales faster. They work on very basic models, like the 150 Model. You know, they have similar staff. Everybody runs on systems, so they know what to do all the time, and they can just duplicate that over and over, achieving economies of scale. What they’re not doing is running five gyms that are all completely different from one another, that don’t have the same alignment on vision, mission, that don’t run, you know, the same systems. And so these guys are really, really impressive. Less important, but still important, to these three is the method that they choose. All three of these gym owners and mentors love CrossFit. That’s gonna be their method. But regardless of your method, your model is what determines your success when you’re trying to scale. I’m Chris Cooper. This is “Run a Profitable Gym.” And if you want to meet with more people who are interested in this phase of their business, go to gymownersunited.com. You’re gonna find other people in there with one location, brand new startups, multiple locations, and big empires, too. Keep going, keep helping people and keep extending your impact.

The post Buy Vs. Build: Two Ways to Expand Your Gym Empire appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Fitness Entrepreneurs: To Go Faster, Stay in Your Lane

By David Allen, Certified Two-Brain Business Mentor

On Aug. 14, 1994, at the age of 9, I watched Michael Jordan play baseball for the Birmingham Barons against the Memphis Chicks.

And you know what? He was a pretty good baseball player.

Being a pretty good baseball player isn’t what Michael Jordan is known for, though, and it isn’t what helped him become a billionaire. 

When I first joined Two-Brain, I was a pretty good gym owner. Professional mentorship combined with Two-Brain’s data-backed best practices helped me become a great gym owner and allowed me to join the Tinker Program with other great business owners.

Guess what happens when you’re around other successful people? You succeed as well!

Do you know what the consequence of success is?

It’s more opportunities—and with those opportunities come distraction.

Focus for the Win

The consequence of building a successful gym is more income and more time. When you combine these two resources with the constant input of other successful people, you get opportunity overload.

Without prior knowledge or experience, you’ll be tempted to jump on every new opportunity that pops up.

“Crypto? I’m in!”

“Airbnb? Sign me up!”

“New business venture? Let’s do it!”

Michael Jordan was the best at basketball, but that didn’t mean his skill set transferred over to another sport. Once you reach the Tinker level of gym ownership, you’re in the top 10 percent of gym owners worldwide. But buying your first Airbnb puts you in the bottom 10 percent of Airbnb investors.

The experience, knowledge, connections and resources you develop to build a successful gym are unique to this specific domain. Sure, there is some carryover (again, Michael was a pretty good baseball player), but once you’ve figured out how to be in the top 10 percent of something, why change course? Why stop winning championships to go live the hard-knock life again?

The Two-Brain model is simple: Build a 150-member gym with an average monthly revenue per member (ARM) of $200-$250. Maintain a 30 percent profit margin. Make $100,000 per year in net owner benefit.

It’s not always easy to travel this path, but the road has been paved and clearly marked—and a mentor can guide you. And, if you’ve done it once, you know what it takes to make the journey again.

Making $100,000 a year through Airbnbs is also achievable. It just takes a much larger financial investment, and it’s a path you haven’t been down before.

Does this mean you shouldn’t invest the money you’ve earned or try out new ventures? Absolutely not. It just means you need to have awareness and make educated decisions based on past experiences and the wisdom of others. My preferred strategy? Find others who are in the top 10 percent of what they do and invest in them. They’ve already figured out the best practices and have learned the lessons that I don’t know yet. 

Ask yourself these questions:

What are you passionate about? What area do you have unique knowledge in?What unique skills do you possess?Where is the bulk of your experience?What resources have you collected?

These are your core competencies—the areas where you are uniquely set up for success. This is where you are in the top 10 percent. And this where you’ll produce the best results.

The post Fitness Entrepreneurs: To Go Faster, Stay in Your Lane appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Economies of Scale: When It’s Smart to Replicate Your First Gym

Ready to own two gyms?

In the first post in this series, I shared the questions you should ask yourself before buying out another local gym.

If you have a working gym and want to duplicate your model over and over, you must ask yourself a series of questions before opening a second location.

Can my gym run without me for two weeks?

A second location will quadruple your workload, not double it. If your current workload is only a few hours a week, go ahead and open a second gym. But if your gym can’t survive without your presence, you’ll kill the golden goose when you try to expand.

Run this test: Take a week away and have no contact with the gym at all. Tell only your staff that you’re going. Don’t check email, and have them call you in an emergency.

When you return, do an audit: Were sales meetings conducted effectively? Were new clients onboarded properly? Were members billed on time? Did staff show up and deliver well? Did you miss a paycheck while you were away? Did the gym run out of toilet paper? Did you get emergency phone calls?

If your gym didn’t run as well without you, take heart: The exercise still has value. Fix the issues and test again in a month or two. Long term, you’re getting yourself ready to own a second location; you’re just not ready now.

If I were hit by a bus tonight, would the gym survive?

Could my staff walk into the gym tomorrow and run my gym according to written instructions?

You need a staff playbook so you’re not called in to “handle” situations with clients, staff or facilities.

This is an extension of the two-week test described above. If your gym can survive two weeks without you, can it survive two months or more?

Do I have the cash flow to weather three months of losses at the new location?

Many gym owners rely on their first location to cover the losses incurred at their second location, but they don’t actually have a buffer. So they sacrifice their own pay or put their first location into a cash crisis while the second location struggles for traction. (I did this.)

Am I still dabbling and trying new stuff every month?

If your first gym is still changing its systems, fooling with its class structure, “figuring out” its marketing, changing software and so on, don’t expand yet.

Get these things set in stone. Before you can replicate your first gym, you must have clear systems for:

Marketing and lead nurture.Sales.Retention.Staff training and evaluation.Operations.Billing.Payments.Media.
Am I hitting the metrics that prove I have a system worth copying?Your first gym should pay you close to $100,000 net owner benefit (NOB) per year.Your clients should be worth close to $200 each (average revenue per member per month, or ARM).Your length of engagement (LEG) should be at least 13 months.Your payroll should be at (or below) 44 percent of gross revenue.Your expenses should be under 25 percent of gross revenue.

If these metrics don’t line up, don’t stress—your model isn’t ready for mass production yet, that’s all.

Benefits of Replication

Now, if you’re ready, a second location can create efficiencies across your organization—called “economies of scale.” This is a big opportunity.

For example:

1. You can share some costs across two gyms.

2. You can share staff across two gyms—you can move coaches from one location to another, creating larger opportunities for them and plugging holes. You can have one really great salesperson do free consultations for both locations, one client success manager talk with members at two gyms, one marketing expert run campaigns for both locations, etc.

3. You can decrease your tax burden by shifting profits back and forth between the two locations. Talk to your accountant.

4. You can share programming across two gyms.

5. You can share staff training across two gyms.

6. You can split mentorship investment across two gyms.

And more.

Economies of scale are possible and attractive. But to get there, you have to have systems that are actually scalable.

Running a second location shouldn’t be the same as running two businesses because the second should be a copy of a very strong first effort that’s free of rookie mistakes and large, costly errors. But if you’re copying a disaster in progress, you’ll soon have a world of problems.

A final rule: Simplicity scales faster. The easier your processes are to follow, the easier your business can be duplicated.

If you’re interested in building the systems that will allow you to replicate your gym, book a call to talk about mentorship.

The post Economies of Scale: When It’s Smart to Replicate Your First Gym appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Gym Owners: How to Expand Your Empire and Scale Up

Chris Cooper (00:00):
Hey, guys, Coop here. This is “Run a Profitable Gym,” and are you ready to grow your empire? That’s what we’re talking about today: the stages of business that will get you ready to scale. So whether you’re thinking about opening up a second location, third, 10th, even franchising your company, I wanna make sure that you’re set up for success. This week, on all of our content, we’re talking about expanding your empire. We have multiple dozens of gym owners in Two-Brain Business who own multiple locations, and their lessons can be very helpful to you—especially the ones that will save you from starting a second gym and then destroying both of your gyms. If this is helpful to you, just go to gymownersunited.com. That’s our free public Facebook group. We put helpful content in there every single day. All the mentors on the Two-Brain team are in there, just chipping in, helping gym owners out for free with all kinds of advice and materials and tools and templates. You can just join for free. It’s gymownersunited.com.

Chris Cooper (00:59):
Today we’re gonna talk about being ready to scale, to expand your empire to multiple locations, and the steps that are required to get there. So if you’re listening to this on the podcast, you might wanna tune into YouTube to see the diagram. I’ve got this really pretty graphic that the media team made for me to break down the four stages of the gym business. The first stage is called “systemization,” the second is “optimization,” the third is “growth,” and the fourth is “scale.” And if you’re listening to this instead of watching, you can just picture four ascending mountaintops. Okay, so here we go. The first thing that has to happen in a business to get ready to scale is you have to be able to systemize everything. That means replacing you, the owner, and what’s in your head with systems that your staff follow and run even without you there.

Chris Cooper (01:49):
This is what excellence means. It’s not “when are you at your best?” It’s “how does your gym perform when you’re not there? When your worst employee is running your worst class ever, how good is it?” And when you’re building a business, especially a gym business, you don’t grow to the level of your marketing and stay there. You fall to the level of your systems, and you keep coming back there. Ask anybody that’s done a marketing agency or a six-week marketing plan, and they’ve gotten all these leads in, and maybe they even got a bunch of signups, and maybe they even made revenue from it, and then two months later they’re right back where they started because you fall to the level of your systems. So what systems do you need? What do you need to get out of your head? Well, there’s a few.

Chris Cooper (02:32):
First, you need your ops systemized completely, including “how do you turn on the lights in the morning? How do you clean the place up? How do you run a class? How do you nurture your leads? How do you call people? Okay, what do you say at a No Sweat Intro?” So you need your sales process systemized and you need your marketing systemized, okay? This means that you should be asking for referrals as part of your goal reviews every single time. A system is like a machine. And when you build a system, it’s like adding a gear in the machine. And the more you use that system, the smoother the gear turns, and it becomes more powerful when you just keep doing it. So once you’ve got these systems built, your gym can actually grow, but if you don’t have these systems, then you’ve got nothing to optimize and you won’t grow.

Chris Cooper (03:22):
And I’ll come back to that in a moment. So you need a system for staff training and ascension. You need a pay system. Absolutely. I already mentioned ops, and that’s like cleaning. You need a delivery system. How do you deliver the perfect class? How do you do it at a 10 outta 10 every time? You know, you need all that stuff. You need pay systems for yourself and your and your staff. You need a metrics system for tracking how you’re doing it so that you can improve that over time. Now we build all these things with you in a program at Two-Brain that’s called RampUp. And the goal here is to build you a system for sales, a system for retention. I don’t wanna forget that—that’s my favorite one. You need a retention system, a system for marketing and the different types of marketing, right?

Chris Cooper (04:08):
You need a system for organic marketing. You need a system for referrals. You need a system for paid marketing, and you need a system for content. You need to get those all down on paper before you can grow. Because when it’s time to grow, if you’re worried about still doing all those things yourself or looking over somebody else’s shoulder and micromanaging them or hoping that they just do it, you’re not gonna be able to grow. Remember, you don’t rise to the level of your marketing. You sink to the level of your systems. The next stage is optimization. Now, this is where you decide like, “OK, this is the system for me, and we’re just gonna get better at that.” This is what I might even call like “virtuosity.” And a lot of gyms never get past this stage because they don’t systemize and test things.

Chris Cooper (04:53):
So what they’ll do is they’ll say, “I’m gonna try Instagram ads, and I’m gonna spend a hundred bucks on Instagram ads this month, and if I don’t get any new leads, I’m gonna stop doing Instagram ads.” Instead, what they should be doing is learning a good marketing system for Instagram ads, setting that up and then running three variations of those ads, deciding which one converts best, and then just putting all the money into that. And that’ll come in the growth stage. So you double down, OK? But you have to test. So the best gyms in the world, and you’re gonna hear this on our podcast later in the week, too, the best gyms in the world pick the methods and the models that work for them. And they just work really, really, really hard at getting better at those methods and models.

Chris Cooper (05:41):
Now, at Two-Brain, we teach you models for all of these, and we do that in RampUp. I’ll give you an example. The sales system that we teach is called the No Sweat Intro. And you can learn the No Sweat Intro. You can follow the script. You can read the questions right off your hand or off your computer screen while the client’s sitting right there in front of you, and you’ll have the system. But then you have to practice the system. You have to get reps with the system. You have to get comfortable with the system to get good at it. And that is where you optimize the system because simply knowing the system is not enough to help you grow. And you’ll see why in a moment. But the reality here is that you have to optimize and test every single thing that you’re doing.

Chris Cooper (06:21):
I’ll give you another one: your delivery system. Let’s say that you’ve made up a workout program that you’re sure is gonna get your clients results. Well, if you’re not tracking their results and testing their results, you don’t know if it’s actually getting them results. And so then they don’t get results, and then they quit. You have to be tracking your delivery. Are you actually getting people results or not? So maybe that’s why you set up your goal review process. You measure their results, you update their prescription based on what’s best for them, and you help them double down too. Retention, I mean, you want to be auditing your retention process and measuring that metric. And of course, metrics are all about optimization. So you wanna have this period where you’re not just scrambling around trying every single thing, a hundred bucks to Instagram, 50 bucks on Facebook, 300 to TikTok, 200 to LinkedIn.

Chris Cooper (07:13):
What you wanna do is find the system that’s working for you, test variations on that system over and over, get reps, get really, really good at it, and then move on to growth. Now, the growth stage, you know what’s working, and it’s time to double down on it. So when your business enters this phase, growth, you already know like, “Hey, I get really good lead gen from Instagram,” for example. So you wanna double down. So this is where you ramp up your ad spend. This is where you might add capacity. So for your delivery, you might add coaches. For your sales process, you might add a salesperson. Probably not, but maybe if you need to add more capacity. Or maybe you might hire somebody to do lead nurture for you or whatever. One, one quick note on that.

Chris Cooper (08:04):
Usually when you’re in the optimize phase and you’re testing things, that might be when you add humans or robots. So when you’re optimizing things, either you are doing something yourself and measuring it or you’re giving it to humans and measuring their output, or you’re automating it by doing like an automated lead-nurture sequence, for example. But it’s a mistake to just jump straight to automation before you’ve got the system absolutely dialed and before you’ve done it yourself. Because what you’re doing then is instead of delegating the work to a human or a robot, what you’re actually doing is just abdicating the work. “I don’t wanna do lead nurture. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t wanna be texting people. I’m just going to pay for a CRM and hope that their texting works.” You have to do it yourself.

Chris Cooper (08:52):
You have to deliver the system yourself. That’s how you optimize. And then you can automate if you want to. So in growth, you might move to automation again once you’ve got the system down. So you’re adding coaches and you’re adding ad spend and you are onboarding clients. And basically in the growth phase, you should know “hey, Facebook ads are working in my market.” Or “three out of every five people who we ask for a referral give us a referral.” You should know that so that you can decide where to go all in. It’s not the time to be experimenting with stuff usually at this phase. After you go through that growth phase, and let’s say that you can get up to, you know, maybe about 150 clients, you’re earning $100,000 in net owner benefit per year, maybe you’ve got one full-time staff, one part-time staff, that’s when you decide “now it’s time to scale.” Here’s what happens to most gyms, though. They will have these brief periods of growth. And so something will happen and they’ll get like five new clients, and they’ll try and onboard these clients, but they have no systems to do it. So if the owner doesn’t onboard the client themself, the client probably doesn’t convert to a long-term membership, right? So again, you sink to the level of your systems. Or somebody will bring their entire family in and their family will sign up. But because you don’t have great operations, some people in the family have to come to the Tuesday class and some have to come to the Wednesday class, and it’s not the same experience. And so the people with the Wednesday class are like, “Well, this sucks. We’re out.” And they quit.

Chris Cooper (10:28):
You fall to the level of your systems again. Or the other thing that can happen after a while is people start a new marketing program. “OK, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna advertise on LinkedIn.” Awesome—advertise on LinkedIn. You get five new clients. “Oh, so good. Let’s keep advertising on LinkedIn.” Well, now it doesn’t work anymore, and after six months it’s not working at all because you don’t know how to optimize what you’re doing or you don’t have a base of content, right? You don’t have a media system. So we’re gonna add that in. Here’s another system that you need that we teach in our RampUp program. Then you’ve got optimize. So another mistake that gym owners make at this stage is they systemize things. “Facebook ads are working for me.” Great, perfect. “They worked for the last three months in a row. They’re gonna work forever, right? I can add five more gyms. Let’s go sign the lease on five more locations.” Suddenly the algorithm changes. Your ads aren’t working as well anymore. You don’t know how to optimize them and oh—you’ve got six locations now and nobody’s getting any new clients because you don’t know how to optimize and continually measure things to improve them. So this is, it’s really important, this optimize phase, and I’m trying to get that through to you. When are you actually ready to scale? Well, there’s a few metrics that you should be looking at. Number 1, you should be able to make $100,000 net owner benefit. That’s profit. That’s you taking money out of the business. That’s not the business’s total top-line revenue. You should be able to make that from one location before you add a second.

Chris Cooper (11:58):
Here’s why adding a second will quadruple your workload. You’re not just gonna split yourself in half. What you’re actually going to do is create all kinds of task-switching problems in your head. So you’ll have to drive back and forth across town from one location to the other. That eats up time. You’ll have to think twice as much and go from thinking about one location to the other, and that eats up brain space, and you get tired, right? The other thing that you have to be able to do is take one week completely away from the business. If you can’t even do that, there’s no way you should be opening up a second location. You also wanna be looking at a couple of client-facing metrics like ARM and LEG. Look, if your business isn’t doing average revenue per member of around $200 and keeping them over 13 plus months, optimize that first.

Chris Cooper (12:46):
Your bigger opportunity is not to open a second location; it’s to optimize the location that you have. And so you go back to this growth. So there are a few traps here that I want to talk to you about. In between the systemize and the optimize phase, we have what we call “the swamp of perfection.” And this might show up in your brain as “nobody can do it as well as I can.” What you have to get over here is this premise that people have to be as good as you to be a coach or as good as you at cleaning to be a good cleaner. What you’re actually doing is hiring people to buy back your time. And in doing that, you might have to accept that they’re gonna perform at a B+ level. And that’s OK. If you are constantly micromanaging them, you are not gonna be able to ascend your business through these stages.

Chris Cooper (13:37):
You are not looking for a coach who’s as good as you are. You’ll never find one. And so you want a coach who can smile, be happy and energetic at 6 a.m. even if their base of knowledge is like a C+. You want that pump-up cheerleader because that’s the first person your clients will see in the morning, right? They might not be up to your standard, and that’s OK. That’s the skill set they need. So that’s the swamp of perfection. You have to get over it. The way that you get over it is you constantly get everything out of your head and onto paper. Then in the optimize phase is what we call the “valley of death.” So you set up these systems, maybe you go away for a week, you come back, and the whole place is on fire. Instead of saying “how can we fix this?” you say “nobody can do it as well as me. I’m gonna jump back in, and I’m gonna fix it all myself, and I’m gonna fire everybody.” This is like the valley of death for a lot of gym owners. And they get in this circle where they just can’t grow because they’re so stuck trying to make everything so perfect that they can’t see outta their own head. The other valley of death trick here that our brains play on us is “well, this is as big as I know how to make this gym. I better start something new.” So you think that you’ve run out of runway at your gym and you’re gonna start a t-shirt company. Or “this gym is as big as it’s ever gonna get. I’m not making enough money. I need to go out and I need to start an online programming business or something completely different.”

Chris Cooper (15:06):
Another one is “the reason the gym isn’t growing is because I’m not certified enough. If I go get my master’s degree or a CrossFit Level 12 black belt, people will find me.” That’s not true. Like there’s a lot of traps in here that will actually stop you from growing because you’re pursuing the wrong things. A mentor will help you here almost more than anywhere else. And, for me, only mentorship gets me through that trap. Finally, in growth phase, you have to be able to focus on “does this grow my gym? “So there’s a great book called “Will It Make the Boat Go Faster?” You don’t need to read it. The answer is in the title. If this does not get your gym to 150 clients or $100,000 net owner benefit faster, don’t do it. At this point, we’ve tried all the stuff, we’ve done our little experiments, right?

Chris Cooper (15:55):
We’ve dabbled and we’re done with that. We’re gonna go all in on what’s working for your gym, and your mentor can help you figure out what that is. So you’re just going to sprint basically, and in the growth phase, you’re gonna go as fast as you can to 150 clients or more and $100,000 net owner benefit or more. And at that point, when you can take a week off and still make a hundred thousand dollars a year, that’s when you think about scale. Now scaling means duplicating what you have into multiple locations. And because you’ve got everything systemized, you’ve got basically a franchise playbook. Because you’ve done the optimization, you have to make minimal tweaks depending on the next location that you have. And because you know how to grow a business already, and you’ve proven it, you’re not gonna impoverish yourself. You can take little risks. Later this week, you’re going to hear an interview with me and three gym owners who are scaling in different ways.

Chris Cooper (16:47):
Some are renting spaces and growing their gyms from scratch over and over. They’ve got everything systemized. They’ve got things pretty much optimized. They’re gonna do maybe a little bit of tweaking with each of the new locations, depending on where it is, but they already know how to grow. If they are buying other gyms up, well, then they have to start with putting their systems into the gym, but they don’t necessarily have to start from scratch with getting clients. So, you know, the growth is gonna be faster for them, but they still have to go through systemization and optimization. The biggest mistake that gym owners make is they get a gym, and it’s fairly successful. Maybe they’re making $50,000, $80,000 a year, so they’re good, right? That puts them in like the top, let’s call it, 30 percent of gym owners worldwide.

Chris Cooper (17:32):
Good for them. Then another gym opens up down the block, they’re not doing as well, and the gym owner says, “I know how to do this. I’m just gonna buy that gym and I’m gonna do it again, and that will double my income. So I’ll have $50,000 from this gym, $50,000 from that gym. That’s a hundred. Boom.” What they, they don’t realize is they’re buying is other people’s mistakes. You’re buying a gym that hasn’t run on systems. You’re buying a gym that doesn’t have any of the challenges solved at all yet. And you’re buying a client list of people who are married to the lack of systems and the lack of optimization and the coaches who are already there. So you have to fix other people’s problems before you can do anything else. And that almost puts a step before systemization, which is like breaking down what’s currently there.

Chris Cooper (18:18):
For that reason, I think it’s better to just start from scratch, duplicate your model over and over, replicate your systems, create your own miniature franchise. But there’s a good argument for doing it the other way, too, because then you’re already starting with some clients. So to recap, every gym business goes through four distinct phases to grow. They have to systemize everything. They have to make it a real business or they’ll constantly be falling back to some ceiling effect. For some gyms it’s 50. For some it’s a hundred clients. After they systemize everything, they have to optimize things. They have to get the trial period out of their heads. They have to stop experimenting, figure out what actually works by measuring things with metrics, and then just double down on that. And once they’ve got that going, they should be able to prove it by making a hundred thousand dollars a year in net owner benefit with about 150 clients or less.

Chris Cooper (19:13):
If they have more than that in net owner benefit, more than that in clients, that’s great, but if they have 300 clients and they’re not even making a hundred thousand a year, they should go back to optimizing their gym before they think about scaling. Finally, when they have that, that’s when they can scale. And there are certain options to do that. We help gym owners with this stuff all the time. In our Tinker Program, there are dozens of gyms with multiple locations who can talk about this. And even at our September meetup, we have a panel of multi-gym owners who are gonna answer questions for the other people in our Tinker Program. That’ll be in San Diego–Tinker in September. But if you’re thinking “I’m just gonna do this on my own. I’ve figured out my first gym. It’s doing OK. You know, it’s profitable. I’m making $50,000 a year. I’m gonna open a second or buy a second location,” I really urge you to go backward through this: systemize everything. Take a week off and make sure nothing breaks. Optimize everything so that you know where to go all in and you’re not just shooting from the hip with your marketing, sales, retention, staff, ascension. Pay yourself. And that’s when you can scale, when you can make a carbon copy over and over and over again. And that’s when you can scale quickly. Remember, systems scale faster, and you always sink to the level of your systems. So it always helps to start this way. I’m Chris Cooper, and this is “Run a Profitable Gym.” Whether you’re ready to expand your empire or just dig yourself outta your hole, book a call with my team below. If you just want free help, go to gymownersunited.com and we’ll give you all kinds of free stuff that will help you get more clients, keep them longer, and make more money until it’s time for mentorship.

The post Gym Owners: How to Expand Your Empire and Scale Up appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

The Second Gym: Buy Another or Build From Scratch?

As Two-Brain gyms become more successful, they’re often approached to “buy out” other local gym owners. Or, after building replicable processes, they see the opportunity to expand and add a second location.

As the gap between profitable gyms and unprofitable gyms widens, these opportunities will become more common.

So which option is better: starting a new gym from scratch under your profitable brand or buying an existing gym—and its clients, revenue and problems?
 

Setting the Baseline

 
Let’s start with the cost to start a gym and compare the benefits and challenges of buying an existing gym against that anchor point.

You can start a new gym for under $35,000, including $7,000 for mentorship (to open successfully), $20,000 for equipment (that’s more than enough) and $5,000 for space upgrades.

(You can get our free Ultimate Business Plan template here.)

But there are some cases where it makes sense to buy an established gym. Just make sure you answer the questions below first.
 

Questions to Answer Before BuyingWhy do you want to own a second gym?

If I hear: “I just want to help more people. My first gym doesn’t take any of my time,” then we proceed with the purchase.

But usually, I hear this: “It’s a great opportunity. There are no other gyms in the area. My members could choose where to visit. It’s almost profitable. I know I could fix it.”

That last part is in bold because I hear it a lot.

The problem is that it takes three times the effort and three times the time to fix a problem than to avoid the problem. In many cases, it takes more work to undo problems than to just start from a blank canvas.

And if you’re opening a second location to make more money, you should be sure you’re maximizing revenue at your first location. Because a second location doesn’t double your workload; it quadruples it.
 

Is There a Third Option?

Here are the questions I ask next:

Is there a chance you could get the gym’s members even if you didn’t buy the gym?Is there an easier way to increase your income in your current gym in less time than you’d require to fix the other gym?Are clients in the other gym accustomed to lower rates? Do they match your target demographic?Why is the other gym failing? Are you buying the problems that are killing it?Does a higher membership count move you closer to your “perfect day”?What liabilities are you also buying? (For example, a lease.)

After thinking it through, many owners decide not to buy out another owner. Here are some reasons I’ve heard recently:

“It would take me months to fix that gym. If I calculate the value of my time, it would be a lot easier to just increase my sales by $2,000 per month at my current location.”

“I’m pretty close to my perfect day already. I can’t imagine dealing with all the discounts and student memberships that killed the other gym.”

“I know I could fix the culture over there, but it would cause me a lot of stress in the meantime.”

“They want a lot more than their valuation. No thanks.”

“I realized it was just my ego saying, ‘I want to be the guy who owns two gyms.’”

Many decide they don’t want to buy the other person’s problems. But they do want to help. So sometimes they offer the other owner a job or pay for the client list or even buy the equipment.

There are ways to help that don’t involve sacrificing your perfect day (or your income!) to save someone else. But kudos for wanting to!
 

What’s the Other Gym Actually Worth?

If you’re sure you want to own two gyms and you’ve examined the less-expensive, easier options, the next step is to anchor the conversation with numbers. You can use our valuation tool:

Rigquipment Finance DCF Worksheet for TwoBrainBusiness.com

Forget intangibles like “community” or location. How profitable is the gym? How long has it been open? How much of your time will this second location require?

If the gym has been open for 10 years and the owner earns $30,000 per year, take a hard pass—you can make more than that in your first year if you start from scratch with a mentor. And you won’t have to go through the work and pain of trying to change the gym.

After all, there’s a reason the owner is selling—and it’s not because he or she wants to “pursue other opportunities.” No one sells a profitable gym that runs itself.
 

Do I Have to Buy It Now?

If you do want to buy out another gym, we’ve been through it many times. The path is clear. Just make sure your own house is in tip-top shape because you’ll have to focus your full attention on the second gym for a few months.

Clients who have been through our RampUp Program are generally successful when they buy out another gym—unless they decide they’re doing just fine with one.

After all, no one needs a second gym when the first one pays well.

You can download the two free guides “How to Buy a Gym” and “How to Sell a Gym” here.

In the next post in this series, I’ll tell you how to get economies of scale by duplicating your original gym. Like buying out another gym owner, there are pros and cons to starting from scratch.

And on the July 6 edition of the “Run a Profitable Gym” podcast, three owners will share their experiences with both buying and building.

If you’d like to find out more about mentorship for gym owners, click here to do so.

The post The Second Gym: Buy Another or Build From Scratch? appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

You Vs. FitnessAI: How to Win the War With the Machines

Bad news: You’re going to lose a few fitness clients to AI.

The good news: They’re probably not the clients you want at your gym anyway.

As the AI revolution continues, consumers have access to apps like FitnessAI, which can generate personalized workout plans, track progress, provide accountability and connect you to a real person for advice. The app’s pricing page lists options from $3.99 a week to $129.99 for an annual membership.

So is an AI trainer better than you are?

Some people are definitely asking that question. Imad Khan tried to answer it in his cnet.com article “Can an AI-Powered Fitness App Outperform a Human Trainer?”

Khan’s conclusion: “AI-powered software and algorithms can’t generate a workout routine for you based on your thoughts and desires—and it might not be precise in accommodating injuries. But everyone is different. … In my case, getting real feedback from a real trainer is what kept me motivated. … When it comes to gains at the gym, I’m opting to trust a human over a machine.”

Some people will take a different path: They’ll love ripping through AI-generated workouts, clicking icons to log results and fiddling around on the app.

You probably have a few tech-loving clients who might be tempted to drop their memberships and get workouts from a bot.

But I’d suggest those clients aren’t perfect for your coaching business anyway.

Relationships With the Right People

It’s possible that the clients who are willing to trade your presence for an app are very dissatisfied with your service. But you’re probably a great coach and charming individual, so I think it’s more likely that you managed to acquire a few of “the wrong clients” when you cast your marketing net.

You might call people in this category “at-risk clients” or even “tourists.” They’re people who might train with you for three months, hit Orangetheory for three months, groove with Kendall Toole on Peloton for a bit, then get workouts from Agent Smith of “The Matrix” (“I’m going to enjoy watching you squat, Mr. Anderson.”).

They’re fickle, and their perfect fitness journey must include a lot of novelty. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as their paths get them closer to their health and fitness goals.

However, if you sell coaching, your ideal client wants a long-term personal relationship with a skilled, likable coach—and you’d be wise to remember that above anything else.

Your programming? Important but not as important as your personal relationship with the client who does it.

Your equipment? Important but not as important as your personal relationship with the client who uses it.

Your facility? Important but not as important as your personal relationship with the client who trains in it.

I’m not saying programming, equipment and facilities are irrelevant. But AI can crank out programming faster than you can, other gyms have better gear than you do and other facilities offer more amenities.

Your greatest value as a coach can be found in the personal relationships you develop, maintain and improve.

The clients who are perfect for you want a personal touch—metaphorically and literally in the form of a high-five after a PR.

As AI’s influence grows, it will be very normal to feel threatened: “Will the bots take my clients?”  

To ensure they don’t, review your client journey today. Ask yourself a few questions:

Is my marketing going to help me acquire my ideal clients?Do my coaching clients get a 10-out-of-10 level of personal contact?How can I add even more personalization to my service?Where I add more touchpoints to my client journey?Can I become more likable? (Yes—instructions here.)Should I send a genuine text message to five clients right now? (Yes.)

Any time you feel threatened by AI, repeat that process.

If you do, I’d suggest you won’t lose many clients to the robots.

The post You Vs. FitnessAI: How to Win the War With the Machines appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Simple Gym Sales Tips: Boost Your Close Rate Today!

Mike Warkentin (00:00):
You might be a great coach, but you can’t help anyone If you do not have any clients. That means you gotta learn to sell. Not what you signed up for? Here’s a hard truth. Your first duty as a fitness coach is to tell a prospective client “you need to start working out with me.” If you don’t, that person isn’t gonna get fitter, and that person will not get healthier. Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” we’re gonna talk about sales. Now, it’s not slimy, dirty, horrible sales that we all hate. This is selling to help people—help people get fitter, help people get healthier. I’ve got one of the world’s top gym owners here to give you some tips. Before we go further, please hit subscribe. I literally believe that you can use this show and all the episodes around it to improve your business and create the life that you want. So don’t miss a single one. Hit subscribe now.

Mike Warkentin (00:47):
OK, on to my guest. Nate Muller owns Green Lake Strength and Conditioning in Seattle, Washington. His gym appeared on all three of our sales leaderboards in May. The first leaderboard is set rate. That’s the number of people who book sales appointments to come see you and talk about joining your gym. The second: show rate. That’s the number of people who book appointments and show up. It’s almost never a hundred. Some people get very close; some people have really bad show rates. No one on our leaderboard did, of course. Final: close rate. That’s the number of people who book appointments, show up and buy something. Now, Nate was on all three leaderboards. In fact, his stat were 36 people set appointments, 33 showed up, and 28 closed. Those are huge, huge numbers. Can you imagine having 28 new clients at your gym? So Nate told me he’s gonna share his secrets with you. Nate, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Nate Muller (01:34):
Hi, Mike. Thank you.

Mike Warkentin (01:35):
I can’t wait to dig into this. I always love it when I get to do this show and there’s someone who is on all three leaderboards because it shows kind of excellence across the board. So I’m just gonna dig right in, and we’re gonna get to the details here. Bring me to the top of your funnel. What is the number one thing that you did to get so many appointments booked in May? Like where do these people come from?

Nate Muller (01:53):
Yeah, good question, Mike. So, most of my clients are coming from web search, although it is pretty close to people just coming by my location. I’m lucky to have a pretty high-traffic location, the visible front. And so I bring in quite a few that way, as well as by referrals.

Mike Warkentin (02:09):
Ooh. That’s a good one.

Nate Muller (02:10):
Yeah, so those obviously help as well. So obviously that all starts with having a great service. But going back to the web search, I do believe that one of the main reasons I’m doing as well as I am on web search is actually due to following up on asking my members for reviews. So that’s a big part of my weekly routine.

Mike Warkentin (02:28):
Okay. So I’m gonna dig into a couple of things there. Do you put ads behind this web search? Like are you popping up in Google as a sponsored thing?

Nate Muller (02:36):
I don’t really. I’ve played around here and there, but that’s not a significant portion of my incoming.

Mike Warkentin (02:41):
OK. So organic search brings a ton of people to your website. What are they looking for? Like, what are they searching for? What are some of the things that bring them to your website?

Nate Muller (02:49):
Yeah. Well, so, interestingly enough, most of my people are just looking for the name of our business. But there’s a decent mix in there. After that, they are actually looking for generally a CrossFit gym in my area. We’re not actually CrossFit, but we come from CrossFit toots. So that’s a big hit. But then a lot of them are just looking for “gyms near me” in Google local search, which I think is where I’m performing really well due to those Google reviews.

Mike Warkentin (03:17):
Yeah. So you’ve done a good job of building up some organic SEO, search engine optimization, as we call it, and people are finding you when they’re looking for “gyms near me,” which is a huge, huge deal. John Franklin, our marketing head, talks about that all the time. If people see your gym when they search for that, that’s huge. But, even better, people are actually searching for the name of your business, which means that they somehow know about you. So you’ve mentioned a few things. How do you think they’re finding out about you?

Nate Muller (03:41):
Yeah, so as far as finding out, I do think that’s where referrals come in in a big way. And then also my location I do think is a really good opportunity. We’re right on a relatively busy corner and people see us. And then that’s where, again, kind of tying it back to those reviews, I think you have to support that with good, authentic marketing—I think in the form of those customer reviews is really key.

Mike Warkentin (04:07):
OK. So I’ve hit referrals on this show a whole lot, and the basic principle, listeners, is you get customers inside your business to refer their friends, family, coworkers, people in their orbit, and we have an exact plan at Two-Brain that you can follow—literally a template that helps you do this. It’s systematic. Referrals don’t just happen. We make them happen. I’m not gonna spend a ton of time on this because I wanna ask you, Nate, about the other side of this: reviews. How do you get people to leave so many reviews? Because we know Google has told us these are huge when it comes to SEO.

Nate Muller (04:37):
Yeah, so this is my own home-brew system, and it’s rather straightforward. I dump a giant list of all of my clients by the date they started. I started this about two years ago. I start at the top of that list, and every Monday I ask five of them for a review. I send them an email personally from me. I say, you know, explain, “Hey, it’s important. We love having you at the gym. It’s important to our business that we get reviews. Would you write one, please?” I usually get one to two reviews out of every five that I ask for. The next week I come back around to those five people that I ask for a review. If any of them have not yet given me a review, I send a follow-up email. And in that one, I redirect them to Yelp reviews. I just say, “Hey, would you, you know, would you write a review on Yelp if you can’t do it on Google?” I don’t incentivize them. I don’t promise them anything. I just say it’s important to us. And if they don’t do it, then I leave ’em alone. And I just keep chipping away at that list at week in and week out. My understanding, I’m not an ex SEO expert. I’m not sure anyone really is. I know there’s a lot of dark magic there. But my understanding is it is important not just to get reviews but to keep ’em coming in and keep that volume steady. And so that is why I’ve decided to kind of do it five at a time to just kind of constantly beat that drum. And again, I think, you know, just getting one to two reviews per week can really make a big difference to your overall score.

Mike Warkentin (06:01):
Yeah, I really agree with you. And again, I love what you said about the dark-magic SEO. People claim to know. No one really knows except for the head Google employees and so forth. But what we do know, or what we suspect, is that a steady stream of things, constant interaction, constant engagement, lots of things happening is much better than a flurry of activity and then nothing. Right? So sometimes if people do these massive campaigns and they’ll get like 40 or 50 reviews at a time, that’s cool. But what happens when a searcher comes to that page and sees reviews from like two years ago and there’s 40 or 50 of them? It’s not the same thing as a constant stream. So I love what you’re doing there, and again, who knows if Google approves of that as well? But I suspect that engagement, just like it is on social media, constant engagement, constant publishing, constant interaction, is a much better thing to keep the snowball moving than flurries of activity. So you don’t just outsource this to a staff member or bot? Like you personally email your members and ask for this?

Nate Muller (06:54):

Yeah.

Mike Warkentin (06:55):
I love that. So as a CEO, this is valuable time. Do you think this is a great use of your time? It’s a dumb question, but what do you think?

Nate Muller (07:01):
No, it’s a good question. I mean, I do think it means something different coming from the business owner. So that’s why I’ve continued to keep this task myself. I have some plans to spread it out a little bit and automate it a bit, but I’m pretty tentative to automate it because I just don’t think people respond as well to automation. You can tell the difference between being emailed by a bot—even though I use a template every time. It doesn’t take me that long. But I literally click send on every single email.

Mike Warkentin (07:26):
Yeah. And I’m sure from time to time you’re like, you know, “Oh, Tim, I saw you back-squat 220 yesterday. Congratulations!” I’m sure you can tack that stuff on.

Nate Muller (07:35):
Exactly. Yeah, it does give me that opportunity to personalize it just a touch. That makes a difference.

Mike Warkentin (07:39):
And that touch, I would suggest, is probably the most important part because the template, the cut and paste, you know, people can smell that kind of stuff. A little bit of human touch is gonna make a huge difference. And it’s like, “Oh, he remembered that and he’s congratulating me. I might be more inclined to leave review.” So when someone leaves review, do they get kind of crossed off the list and taken outta that pool? Or how does that go?

Nate Muller (07:59):
Yeah, so I manually keep an eye on that, too. That’s probably the most annoying part of the process is actually just remembering to see that they wrote a review. I always reply to their reviews to thank them. I thank them in email, and then I have to go back to my spreadsheet and mark that they did it so I know not to bug ’em again. But again, for the overall value that I’m getting, as best I can tell, I’m the best reviewed gym in Seattle. So seems to be worth it after a few years.

Mike Warkentin (08:23):
Do you know offhand how many reviews you’ve got up there?

Nate Muller (08:25):
I think I’m around 180 right now.

Mike Warkentin (08:27):
Wow. That is huge. And they’re all spaced out at intervals of like a week or so?

Nate Muller (08:31):
Exactly. Yeah.

Mike Warkentin (08:33):
Here’s a question I gotta ask: Do you ever get a bad one?

Nate Muller (08:36):
You know, I’ve gotten one or two. And I try to respond really professionally when I do. They’ve never come from me asking—that’s usually when we made a mistake, right? And that’s one thing I’ve noticed is that people respond well to just admitting your mistakes and trying to make the best of it, right? I’ve seen other business owners that, you know, get defensive and try to argue with a bad review. I really respond publicly to them and say, “Wow, like, we, our expectation is do better than this. I’m really disappointed that you had that service, and let me follow up and see what I can do.” In fact, actually we’ve only had one like straight-up bad review since I’ve taken over, and that was what I did. And admittedly it took some time, but that guy became a member and changed his review from a one to a five star. Really, and I never asked him to do that either. I already was aware of the issue and, and following up with him anyhow when he wrote the review. But then I continued to kind of persist and not take it personally and just work through it with him. And he’s become a great member.

Mike Warkentin (09:39):
Ooh. So I’m gonna point out two things for listeners here. The first is get reviews—do whatever it takes. A simple system that Nate laid out is just email five members a week and ask for reviews—Yelp, Google, Facebook, whatever. Get some reviews. That is a huge thing that you can do. It’s very simple. It doesn’t take a ton of time, but it will have measurable results: organic SEO without spending money. There’s a huge value on that. The second thing that you can do: If you get a bad review, don’t sweat it. You can definitely look at it professionally and say, “Is there something that I can take from this to improve my business?” If there is, do that and take those corrective measures. After that, respond professionally, move on. And in some cases, that’s gonna make it be enough to make that person happier and change it. In other cases, that negative review may stick there. But if you went to a gym website and you saw 179 positive reviews and one negative one, what would you think? “One unhappy person, maybe a little bit of a jerk.” whatever. It’s buried with the other reviews. So don’t sweat that one bad one. Now Nate, I’m gonna ask you what exactly are you doing at your gym? I’d like to know the basics—like where are you at, what do you sell? Who’s your ideal client?

Nate Muller (10:48):
Yeah, good question. So our ideal client is someone kind of in their middle ages, kind of 35 to 45. We obviously serve all adults. We’re primarily focused on adults right now. And they’re working professionals, generally. They’re a parent, maybe with young kids. They’re very busy, and they wanna come in and get a good, efficient workout and not get hurt, right? So they’re not trying to win any competitions. They’re not trying to, in a lot of cases, they’re not even trying to set PRs or anything. And they might even be here for their mental health as much as they are for their physical health. So that’s kind of our core client. What we offer them, we have a few services. Our primary service is strength-and-conditioning classes, right? So it’s functional fitness. We’ve really tried to take a lot of the competitive elements out of what most people know of functional fitness. So we don’t have leaderboards or RX weights. We just have workouts. We do have a workout of the day that most people are doing. We also offer our individualized design program that’s meant to meet people really exactly where they’re at and design a program just for them.

Mike Warkentin (11:49):
Is that PT—like one on one?

Nate Muller (11:50):
It’s not one on one. So it’s kind of in the way that you deliver one-on-one training. It’s most similar to semi-private training, if you’re familiar with that. But it’s a little bit different in that you have a coach developing a program for you. Like in semi-private training, it might be delivered by any one of a couple coaches. In our gym, it’s kind of shared semi-private training in a way. So we have run classes of four to six, but a little more teaching the member how to do the things on their own. So not counting on a coach to literally walk them through every exercise, but building a program, building accountability—that is our big area for growth right now. That’s a newer program for us, and that’s where I’m really trying to build my business. I’m currently at about 250 active members on the group side, the regular group strength and conditioning, and that’s about as many as I can handle in those classes. And so I’m really trying to grow the individualized design program.

Mike Warkentin (12:44):
Okay. And how many square feet have you got?

Nate Muller (12:46):
We’re about 4,000 square feet. So not a lot of space. Staff members—about a dozen.

Mike Warkentin (12:52):
Okay. So you’re maximizing like 4,000 square feet with about 250 people and about a dozen staff members. How many of those are full or part time?

Nate Muller (13:00):
They’re all part time.

Mike Warkentin (13:01):
Okay, cool. And you’re full time. Do you still coach and do things on the floor or are you the CEO?

Nate Muller (13:06):
I’m more in the CEO role. I coach a little bit again to just to stay connected, but I coach, you know, two to four classes per week depending on who’s sick or you know, outta town or whatever.

Mike Warkentin (13:17):
Okay. So I wanted to give people a lay of the land, just so when people listen to you, they understand exactly what you’re selling, because it’s not uncommon in the microgym world what you’re doing. Very similar. You’ve got some group stuff. You’ve got some semi-private stuff, which is personalized programming, delivered maybe in a small-group setting, but people are getting individualized programming. We have lots of podcasts on semi-private training. So if you listeners are interested in that, check some of those out. Now, so we know how you’re getting people: They’re contacting you either through referrals, which are, you know, slam dunks for the most part, or they’re coming at you from Google, which is fantastic as well. Three of the bookings didn’t show for you, but that’s a huge number because I’ve had times when I’ve had like, I don’t know, 60 leads and seven show up—something like that. So what is your process for ensuring that people don’t leak out at this stage of the funnel?

Nate Muller (14:02):
Yeah, so that one is automated, and they get an automatic text three days ahead of time and one day ahead of time to remind. Then we do also follow up. So in the event that someone doesn’t show, we do follow up. So when we do look at, you know, the three that we missed, those mean they missed throughout the month and we never even got ’em back in. So we probably have more than that that missed their first appointment. But then we work really hard to try to get ’em back in. And again, we try to be understanding. We aren’t like, “Blah, blah, blah, you didn’t show up.” We’re like, “Hey, bummer, we know life happens. Please, we’d love to talk to you. Come on back in. Here’s how to reschedule.” So we do have a follow-up process as well if people do miss.

Mike Warkentin (14:42):
So, listeners, follow up. Don’t just assume that a booking is gonna show up. You can automate this process. You can also add in human touches. There are people that I know that, when they see a booking show up, they’ll send a video text confirmation: “Hey, I saw you were on our website. I can’t wait to meet you. These are the details. Text me at this number.” Whatever—send. And some of that can be automated, but other times they’re doing it manually. Whatever you’re doing, make sure that you are telling your leads “I can’t wait to see you” and follow up. And if they don’t show up, they’re not gone. You can keep after them. Now, Nate, does it feel weird at all to like quote-unquote “hound someone” when they haven’t showed up? Because for me, that was tough to get over. How do you feel about that?

Nate Muller (15:18):
Yeah, I’ve tried to remind myself that, especially since we don’t do a lot of lead gen, like these people went through a lot of trouble to find us to decide they wanna work with us and create an account and all that. They’ve done quite a few things to even get to booking an appointment with us. So yeah, I try to just remind myself it’s like they wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t want this. And we are all busy. And so I just kind of think about it as helping them achieve the goals that they clearly expressed interest in by keeping us top of mind for them.

Mike Warkentin (15:50):
Such a great way to put it. Because if someone goes through the steps to book an appointment, to talk to you and to come to your facility, that person wants and likely knows that that person needs what you are selling. And if you don’t follow up with that person, you’re not doing a very good job as a gym owner. And it’s not hounding them; it’s actually helping them. Chris Cooper wrote an entire book on this. It’s called “Help First.” I would encourage you to read it. It’ll change your mind about the sales process. Let’s get into that. Now in the sales, I’m gonna just check my stats here. So you got 33 to show up and you closed 28. A huge, huge number. How do you do it? Talk to me about that sales meeting. What goes on in there?

Nate Muller (16:26):
Yeah, so it’s just an interview, right? So we are really trying to get from them why they’re here, what are their goals, what do we need to know about them, how can we help them feel welcome, right? So when we did start with Two-Brain back in October, I just looked back, we revamped that. So it had been a lecture of sorts beforehand. So we kinda lectured them on how great we are and what we offer and all this stuff. And we really flipped it around to be just a really more of an interview of them to try and make sure we know why they’re here and make sure it’s a good fit for them. And that’s kind of how we pitch it to them. It’s like, “Hey, we wanna understand you and your goals and make sure we’re a good fit.” We do occasionally refer people out, right? Like those few that we miss usually are just a legitimately not a good fit, and we’re okay with that. So when we did switch to that, I did look back, and we moved from like about a 70 to an 80 percent close rate by just flipping the interview process or flipping it around.

Mike Warkentin (17:21):
So a measurable bump. Just by changing things around, you bumped up your close rate by 10 percent. That’s huge.

Nate Muller (17:25):
Yeah. On average it moves from month to month, right? Obviously. But yeah, it was great, and it made it feel less salesy, honestly, which was kind of fun. Like at first I was like, “I don’t know.” I just tried it out ‘cause it was recommended, and I wasn’t sure. But in the end it was like, “Oh, this actually feels nice. Like, I just let them talk and tell us why they wanna join the gym, and they get to do all the selling.” I don’t even have to do the selling anymore. Like they do it for me. It’s great.

Mike Warkentin (17:50):
And that’s the beauty of what Chris has put forward, listeners. The Prescriptive Model is what it’s called. You have a conversation and you listened to find out what these people wanna accomplish. You tell them how to accomplish it through your business, and you slide over the price with a pricing binder. We have templates that we help our clients use. You can create your own—make it very simple. And there are some things that we can do in there, but again, it’s a simple presentation. It’s not 35 pages of scrolling. You don’t let them choose their own path. It’s as simple as, “I wanna lose weight.” “Our platinum package involves personal training three times a week plus nutrition services, plus online coaching of some sort.” Whatever. “And here’s the price: $550” or whatever it is. “Oh, I can’t afford that.” “Could you afford something for $400?” And there’s a whole system that Two-Brain teaches you. But the point being it’s prescriptive, and it’s all about the client’s goals. And something that you said, Nate, is really important. I didn’t realize this originally. If you are talking too much in a sales meeting, that’s a huge mistake. They need to be talking. Do you agree with me?

Nate Muller (18:47):
Oh, absolutely. There is that stat of like—it’s not stat. It’s the thing I’ve heard that, like, people tend to like you the more you let them talk, right? So yes, you gotta let them talk so they can enjoy their time with you.

Mike Warkentin (19:00):
And when you were giving the lecture—cause I did the same thing. It’s like, “Here’s this. Here’s our stuff. Check out our thing. Let’s do a workout together—none of that gets to the root of their problems. I never asked these guys like, “Why are you here? What do you wanna accomplish?” I just figured they wanna do this hard workout, they wanna see my cool equipment that I’ve placed in such an amazing manner and so forth. None of that mattered. If I had just said “why are you here?” I would’ve known so much more. You know, your lecture, was it all full of like ex.-phys. and like “how great we are” kinda stuff?

Nate Muller (19:28):
Yeah, we would talk about our workouts—and we do deliver a nice unique version of functional fitness, and I think there are some key points that are different about what we do versus others, but it turns out nobody really cares about that in the sales process, right? So we’ve now moved that into our on-ramp process so they can, you know, understand why they’re here.

Mike Warkentin (19:47):
That’s where it belongs.

Nate Muller (19:48):
Yeah.

Mike Warkentin (19:49):
So do you do these sales meetings or do you have staff that does them?

Nate Muller (19:51):
I’m slowly transitioning outta doing the sales. So for a while I was the primary salesperson, right? I’ve bounced around where someone was doing it for me. I was doing them. I’m now trying to work myself out of that sales process. I have three other people now helping me with it through different times of day. I guess that probably is a reason we’re able to have so many is that I have built up a big enough sales team across a wide enough range of hours that I do think that makes a material difference in how many people were able to bring in. So I have people serving appointments in the morning and in the evening and throughout the middle of the day. And so, you know, that just makes it available to more people to get more people in.

Mike Warkentin (20:28):
So, listeners, I’m gonna give you a quick summary here. Set rate: What Nate is doing is he’s using referrals and organic marketing to get people to book appointments. He’s got lots of appointments, lots availability with his sales team. So people don’t have to be like “I can’t make Thursday at noon.” They can pick when they want, and there’s a person available. Show rate, he’s automated much of that. You can figure out ways to do that. That involves a personal touch or automation. Whatever you do, you’re following up with leads, making sure they show up. In the closing stage that is in the sales office: let the people talk. They’re gonna tell you their goals. You’re gonna lay out the prescription for how they accomplish them. Then you’re going to give them the price. They’re gonna sign up. And then you go through an onboarding process. Again, Two-Brain has resources that lead you through every step of the way here. So if you’re confused by it, a lot of it you can find in our blog, but there’s even better stuff for our clients. They get done-for-you resources, plug-and-play consultations with sales experts, all this other stuff. Now I gotta ask you this, Nate, ‘cause this is a huge one. A lot of people who are good at selling—and I’ve talked to other gym owners on the show who are amazing at selling—when they try and pass that off to staff members, everything goes poorly. So how did you ensure that your close rate didn’t plummet when you offloaded some stuff to other people?

Nate Muller (21:37):
Yeah obviously I trained them first, right?

Mike Warkentin (21:41):

Not to me! I screwed that up.

Nate Muller:
So I gave them a good template. I walked through it with them. We practiced some on our own. I had them sit in on some of my appointments to watch. And then I do track it, right? So I do use the Two-Brain template to look at my sales data across not just the overall month but across each of my salespeople. And I’ve kind of turned that into a little bit of a fun game with our people. ‘Cause I have made it clear to the sales team that nobody’s getting a bonus based on their close rate or anything, but we do look at it every month, and we kind of like just give high-fives to each other on how we’re doing, fortunately. And so, you know, there have been months where somebody seems like they’re slipping or whatnot. But in the end—usually when I dig in, and I then will follow up on the people that they miss and I’ll look at the notes—I’ll look and like “this person really mostly just got a few of the bad appointments that just weren’t good fits.” Usually where we see this sales rate slipping is more to do with that than anything in the process. But, you know, I’m keeping an eye on it, and I’m talking to ’em and sharing knowledge. I encourage sharing knowledge between people. Like if somebody on my team figures out something new, you know, I want them to share it—as I do as well if I notice something going well or not.

Mike Warkentin (22:51):
Listeners, I’ll give you a couple things here. If you have referrals booking appointments and you’re not closing a high percentage, something is broken in your sales process, OK? ‘Cause referrals are the warmest leads you’re ever gonna get. They’re slam dunks if they know someone inside your business. You can only screw that meeting up. So if you have referrals and you don’t have a high close rate, you need to work on your sales process. The second thing is— and regular listeners of the show will know this—Nate’s just talked about systems. He’s got a system for tracking metrics, for reviewing things, for addressing issues, for congratulating people when things are going well and adjusting and incorporating feedback and optimizing. Systemize, optimize—all of these things. I need a gong on this show. And every time a gym owner, a successful gym owner, shows up, I ring it when they say “I have a system.” Because not a single successful person does not have a system. So if you do not have a sales system, you need to get one. Nate, talk to me about one thing. Let’s give people an actionable thing. Make it simple. What is something that a lister can do today, someone who’s like “I’m not very good at sales.” What can they do today to take that number, whatever number it is, and improve it? What would you give them?

Nate Muller (24:01):
I definitely would start with downloading the Two-Brain template. I’m pretty sure it is freely available, isn’t it?

Mike Warkentin (24:07):
Which one is this? Tell me which one are you referring to.

Nate Muller (24:08):
The No Sweat Intro template—the questionnaire template.

Mike Warkentin (24:12):
So there is all sorts of stuff. Yeah, I’m gonna put a link to the Prescriptive Model for listeners. So I’m gonna put a link to the Prescriptive Model, and it’s got everything that you’ll need. Some of our clients-only resources are behind a paywall, obviously for our clients. But this one article is gonna tell you the system that the majority of our clients use in the sales meeting. So take me a little further from that, Nate.

Nate Muller (24:32):
Yeah, so definitely give that a try and just start working through that, right? Like upend whatever it takes. Upend your sales process to make it into an interview if you’re not already doing that. That is definitely a big change. That was definitely a big change for me. And again, it makes it so much more fun, honestly. Like you get to hear good stories from them. You get to have a great chat. So definitely start there. On that sales process, obviously, rewinding back to the leads process, I would try that Google review—unless you’re in Seattle. Don’t do that. Try asking for reviews, and get a system together on asking for your reviews. I do believe that’s a big part—that helps with getting them in the door and having them warm, right? ‘Cause they get to see real words from my real clients to make them feel like this is a welcoming place.

Mike Warkentin (25:22):
So there you have it. Summary of tips: Ask your members for Google reviews. Do that according to—hit the gong!—a system. Do that regularly. Second, you can follow up on leads. It’s simple. You can automate that in a second. And then third, try the Prescriptive Model in your sales process. If you are not a believer and you don’t wanna be taken and say “it’s snake oil” or whatever, try it and track. Track the stats against your normal process. See what works better and make some changes. Nate noticed a 10 percent improvement—10 percent more leads closed in your sales office is measurable money in your pocket. You can’t go wrong with that. Nate, this has been great. I’m not gonna rant anymore because you’ve given people simple, actionable stuff to do, and I want them to take action. So thank you so much for being here today.

Nate Muller (26:05):
Great, thank you, Mike.

Mike Warkentin (26:06):
Great, great stuff here. Guys, if you do this stuff, your set, show and close rates will improve, which means your bottom line will improve. You’ll have a better career, a better life. And you’ll have more staff members and have happy clients. Take some of these steps today. That was Nate Muller, and this is “Run a Profitable Gym. Thanks for listening! Please hit “subscribe” on your way out wherever you’re watching or listening because I believe that you can use this show to grow your business every week. Now here’s a final message from our founder, Chris Cooper.

Chris Cooper (26:31):
Hey, it’s Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper with a quick note. We created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners just like you have already joined. In the group, we share sound advice about the business of fitness. Every day, I answer questions, I run free webinars, and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I’d love to have you in that group. It’s Gym Owners United on Facebook or go to gymownersunited.com to join. Do it today!

The post Simple Gym Sales Tips: Boost Your Close Rate Today! appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Hard Gym Truth: If You Can’t Sell Them, You Can’t Save Them

The first real coaching tip you ever give someone is “sign up.”

If they don’t register for your coaching program or buy your membership, you can’t help them.

For the first several years of gym ownership, I didn’t understand this.

I thought salespeople were slimy tricksters out to make a quick buck. I hated the smoke-and-mirrors approach of most people in the fitness industry. I thought asking someone in plain language to sign up for my gym meant I was no better than the “membership coordinator” at the globo gym who locked people into memberships they’d never use.

In fact, my sales pitch used to be this:

“Well, I’m not a salesperson. You can trust me.”

And then I’d pretend to be indifferent about whether the person signed up or not. I’d often encourage people to take their time, think it over and call me if they were interested.

That’s because I viewed “sales” as a necessary evil instead of my first act of service to a new client.

Here’s the truth: If they’ve carved time out of their day, driven across town, given themselves a pep talk to get out of the car, walked in your front door and introduced themselves, they want to sign up.

Your job is to make that signup as easy and painless as possible.

That means you don’t need to give them a tour. They’re not making a decision based on what equipment you have—because they don’t know what they need.

You don’t have to give them your schedule—because they’re not making a purchase based on their schedule. They’re buying the solution to their problem.

You don’t have to tell them every pricing option—because they don’t know what they need. They’ll default to the cheapest option if they don’t understand your value.

You don’t have to tell them your life story—because that won’t solve their problem.

You don’t even have to let them “try a workout”—because they have no idea if that workout will solve their problem. In fact, if they don’t have a strong exercise history, the workout is more likely to turn them off.

Getting a person to sign up is your first act of service.

It’s your first act of coaching.

If you can’t sell them, you can’t save them.

You’re not a good coach until you can get people to sign up.

When Great Coaches Can’t Sell

This is the reason most coaches leave the industry: They focus on reading scientific studies and acquiring credentials but never work on their sales process. Most people never discover how amazing they really are because they don’t sign up.

This was a hard lesson for me—a person who literally used to advertise “no sales pitch! I promise!” in every blog post and email. I actually did this in my paid ads, too. Even while I was broke and absolutely desperate for people to sign up, I didn’t want to commit “the sin of selling them.”

What cured me? A client who later became the first GM of Catalyst. Her name was Melanie.

She came in after spending a year overseas, finding CrossFit and loving it.

I said, “Well, I’m not a salesperson, but … .”

She said, “Well, I’m going to join, so this is going to be a short conversation. Tell me how to give you money.”

I put away my binder of graphs and my 30-minute speech about constantly varied functional movement and said, “Uh, voided check or Visa card?”

“Visa,” she said. “I don’t have checks yet.”

Then I told her about on-ramp.

“Sounds good. My coach over in Dubai told me I need to improve my squatting,” she said.

She paid, we booked her first on-ramp session, and she joined the gym.

The Simple Way to Serve Clients and Sell

Here’s the six-step process to selling the right way:

1. Book people into intro appointments (in Two-Brain we call them No Sweat Intros or NSIs, but you can use “free consultations” or anything you like. Just don’t jump straight into a tour or trial workout).

2. At the NSI, ask some basic questions (we go through these in detail with mentorship clients).

3. Make the best prescription for them. Show them the price.

4. If it doesn’t fit their budget or schedule, downshift your prescription to match—but know that they will probably ascend to your original prescription within a few months. (Remember: Your general programming, group-class option is your discount option. That was hard for me to grasp.)

5. Book their first Goal Review Session to occur within the first 90 days.

6. At that session, upgrade their prescription to ensure they’re getting optimal results.

This process is simple—but your clients want simple. It’s also fast—but your clients want speed, too. And it works because your leads want to sign up. They’re not yours to close; they’re yours to lose.

Coach them to the right decision, then start coaching them to change their lives.

The post Hard Gym Truth: If You Can’t Sell Them, You Can’t Save Them appeared first on Two-Brain Business.

Measuring ROI: Is Your Gym Website Working?

By Kaleda Connell, Certified Two-Brain Business Mentor and CEO of Kilo

“I don’t know if my website is working”—I hear this all the time.

As a gym owner, you must know the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts. Your website is one of the most overlooked and yet essential marketing assets you have.

The point of a modern website is to entice visitors to become customers. For most gyms, the No. 1 goal should be to increase “opt-ins”: when a user enters contact information into the site, indicating interest in the business and its services. An increase in opt-ins will give a gym owner more leads to nurture into paying members.

If the goal is more opt-ins, we can measure website performance by determining the return on investment in the website. Simply put: Does the money spent on the website result in more sales?

Website ROI can be estimated like this:

ROI = (Money generated from the site – Cost of investment)
/ Cost of Investment

Cost of investment is the total amount spent on creating and managing the site over a chosen time frame—we’ll use one year here.

In order to determine your ROI, you will need to:

1. Determine your website costs.

2. Monitor the sales funnel: Track the number of people who become paying members (sales).

3. Determine customer value: the front-end revenue expected from a sale.

Calculations

Most gyms choose a website company that charges a large up-front fee and requires additional software to collect leads.

Setup costs: $3,000 (amortized over two years, so $1,500 per year)
Monthly fee: $300
Domain: $100 per year
Hosting: $90 per year
Plug-ins: $30 per year
Lead-capture software: $300 per month

Total spent in year 1: $8,920 

Let’s assume the site gets 100 visits each month. Average opt-in rates range from about 1 to 5 percent—but this figure varies widely depending on website performance and the quality and placement of the opt-in form. Let’s assume that the average gym website has an opt-in rate of 2.5 percent. With 100 visits a month, that’s 30 leads per year—and we will pretend that every lead eventually books an appointment (this never happens).

The average Two-Brain Business gym has a conversion rate of about 70 percent. If we use this figure—which is based on mentorship and sales training—the gym will make 21 new sales. We’ll also assume each person is sold a CrossFit membership of $150 on the front end. Here’s the math:

21 sales per year x $150 per sale = $3,150

Now let’s plug that into the ROI formula:

($3,150 – $8,920) / $8,920 = -64% ROI

That’s bad. This gym is losing money through its website.

When Websites Make Money

At Kilo, we’ve talked to thousands of gym owners about their websites. While a lot of sites look nice, they are actually costing the owner money and opportunities. In fact, most gym owners have no idea how many leads they are getting, if any. Similarly, they have no one to help them measure traffic, optimize performance or meet their sales and revenue goals.

Kilo sites are built to change that because we know ROI is critical for all gym owners and especially Two-Brain clients, who track and analyze metrics relentlessly.

Here’s a real example of Kilo website ROI:

Setup costs: $0
Weekly fee: $82
Domain: $100
Hosting: $0
Plug-ins: $0
Lead-capture software: $0

Total annual spend: $4,364

On Kilo sites, we’ve seen opt-in rates well above the 1-5 percent range, but we’ll use just 80 leads per year for our comparison. For perspective, one of our clients gets 300 visits a month at a 6.7 percent opt-in rate, which is 240 leads a year through its website—so 80 leads is not an uncommon number.

With 80 leads and a 70 percent close rate, the gym will make 56 sales. Many gyms—and especially Two-Brain gyms—sell intro packages well above the $150 mark. We’ll use $360 in front-end revenue for our calculations. Again, this number is not uncommon. The gym that gets 240 leads a year with a 6.7 percent opt-in rate sells an intro package worth $360, and many Two-Brain gyms sell intro packages above $400 with the help of a mentor.

So 56 sales a year at an average of $360 each generates $20,160 in revenue.

Let’s plug that into the ROI formula:

($20,160- $4,364) / $4,364 = $361% ROI

Here’s a summary:

Remember: If your intro package is worth more than $360, the ROI skyrockets. And if you get more than 80 leads, ROI jumps again. Finally, if you learn to sell and improve your close rate, ROI improves yet again. (Two-Brain has specific tactics you can use to improve package value, lead generation and close rates.)

Run the Numbers and Demand ROI

If you aren’t sure if your website is working for or against you, you must get a Google Analytics account and track your traffic and your lead generation.

Plug your numbers into the ROI formula I presented above and see if you’re losing money or making money on your website.

Then talk to your website provider about your business goals and expectations. If you still don’t get the results you’re after, switch providers.

Remember this: A website isn’t supposed to be a work of art. It’s supposed to be a critical part of your marketing funnel, and it should actually make money for your fitness business.

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